Today's Promise

Today's Promise

Dr. Bill Bright

How to Test Your Experience: I

"Talk with each other much about the
Lord, quoting psalms and hymns and singing sacred songs, making music in your
hearts to the Lord. Always giving thanks for everything to our God and Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by submitting to each other" (Ephesians
5:19,20).

Mary was one of those ardent, faithful church members - a Sunday school
teacher, choir member and active participant in a home Bible study - who just
assume they are filled with the Holy Spirit because they do everything their
pastor or Christian leader asks of them.

"Why has no one, up to now, ever told me that I needed to be filled with
the Holy Spirit?" she asked me just after I had publicly suggested that
very thing.

To help Mary better understand her own spiritual condition, I read to her the
above passage from Ephesians. Then I asked her several questions relating to
that portion of Scripture.

"Are you talking about Christ to others? Is your heart filled with
melody to the Lord? Do you spend time in God's Word daily? Do you have a
thankful spirit? Do you submit to others in the Lord?"

Mary hesitated only a moment. "If these are evidence of a Spirit-filled
life, I must not be controlled by the Holy Spirit. But I would like to be. What
should I do?"

With great delight and joy I shared appropriate Scriptures with her, and
together we bowed in prayer as she claimed by faith the fullness and control of
the Holy Spirit in her life. Surrendering to the lordship of Christ, turning
from all known sin, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, she now knew
with certainty that she was filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit
is not a once-and-for-all-decision, but a way of life in which we claim the
fullness of the Spirit moment by moment, day by day, by faith.

TODAY'S ACTION POINT:
I will honestly compare myself with the evidences of the supernatural,
Spirit-filled life listed in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. If these are not
true in my life, I will claim by faith the fullness and control of God's Holy
Spirit, and ask Him to make these qualities a reality in my daily relationships
with the Lord, with my loved ones and with others.